Elzbieta (Ela) Jacek

Ela Jacek is a third-year resident at the Tufts University Family Medicine Residency at Cambridge Health Alliance. She has been a part of Patient Advisory Council (PAC) at Malden Family Medicine Center (MFMC) since her intern year. MFMC is a large, diverse clinic that is part of a health safety net system with a panel of 23,000 patients and 60,000 visits in 2018. We are lucky to have the support of various integrated health professionals, including clinical pharmacists, psychologists, social workers, complex care managers, nutritionists and work very closely with our nurses and medical assistants to provide robust team-based care. PAC is a platform that incorporates patients’ voices into designing and evaluating workflows and projects that are constantly evolving at MFMC.

Ela was born in Poland and moved to the U.S. when she was 14 years old. She attended CUNY Hunter College and subsequently transferred to Barnard College, where she studied Neuroscience and Behavior. After graduating in 2010, she did research in the field of Lupus and Autoimmunity at the Hospital for Special Surgery. As a medical student at Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Ela developed an interest in healthcare economics and became involved in educational opportunities (JeffDesign, BizBio) related to healthcare business and innovation. During residency, she continued to learn and apply principles of QI to enhance quality of patient care, with PAC being her main focus. She hopes to continue engaging patients and other major stakeholders to transform our system to promote health and wellness for all.